Dear Senator McCain,
Today you appeared on Fox News and were asked your opinion on Obama's rising poll numbers and his falling stature. This was your answer:
[B]ecause life isn't fair.
Senator McCain, you grew up in a family that never had to worry about money and had that had both the desire and the resources to make sure you got a good education. You attended a private boarding school.
Now, you are a politician who owns 8 houses and 13 cars. You have a generous healthcare plan that is funded by taxpayers. Your job is actually so secure that you've been able to neglect it for almost a year in order to seek a promotion. You are more than living the American Dream.
But you have a point, Senator. There are people for whom life truly is not fair.
Some people are born into poverty. Some people are born into single-parent families in school districts whose teachers have neither the ability nor the resources to act as surrogate parents. Some people never had a chance at the American Dream.
Some people have no health care. Some people will spend the next 20 years of their life paying off student loans. Some people are legally unable to marry the person they love most in their lives. Some people get laid off from their jobs despite the fact that they've worked hard and well all their lives.
Some people have to struggle every day to see what truth is left in the American Dream.
There was a five-year period in your life where life truly was not fair for you, Senator. What happened to you in the Hanoi Hilton was truly horrific. That was unfair, Senator. It was far, far beyond unfair.
But it was a very different kind of "unfair" than what tens of millions of Americans have experienced during their lives. You don't know what it's like to feel like you never had a chance in life. You've never known what it's like to lose your job because of forces that seem far beyond your control.
You are about to lose a shot at a promotion because of the economy, Senator, but not because of anything that is beyond your control. You're going to lose because people whose entire lives have been unfair have finally started to realize that you cannot - or will not - understand them. That is why you are losing in the polls, and that is why you will lose at the ballot box in 33 days.
And that, Senator, is not unfair.
Respectfully,
Matisyahu